Yemen: 5 killed as Saudi-led airstrikes hit ancient Sana'a

Saudi-led coalition jets struck Sanaa's Old City, a Unesco World Heritage Site, on Friday (12 June), killing five people and wounding several others, residents and witnesses said.

The strikes, which started in the early hours of the morning, destroyed three homes belonging to the same family, and caused damage to several other buildings in the vicinity. The casualties were also all from the same family, witnesses said.

For more than 11 weeks, an Arab military grouping led by Saudi Arabia has been bombing the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, now the dominant group in Yemen, in a bid to restore the exiled president to power and support local fighters in battlefields nationwide.

According to residents, the missile that struck the Old City neighbourhood did not explode on impact, minimizing the damage to the ancient city.

"At around 2a.m., Saudi fighter jets struck a neighbourhood in the old city of Sanaa, but, thank God, the missile didn't explode," said witness Mohammed Ali Mohammed. "But it landed on the compound of the Abdel Qader family, which consists of three houses, killing five people from the Abdel Qader family."

Yemen's rebel controlled state news agency, Saba, said six people were killed in the airstrike and at least five homes destroyed.

The Old City of the Yemeni capital has been inhabited for nearly 3,000 years and has a high density of unique ochre and white, mud-brick, tower houses, labyrinthine souqs, mosques and bathhouses.

UN-sponsored talks are due to be held in Geneva on Sunday (14 June) to try to find a solution to the crisis which has left 80 percent of the population needing some form of humanitarian aid.